


Cat and Mouse

by nanami



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 17:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanami/pseuds/nanami
Summary: Barawa and Sarya have worked at the rest of the calling card's riddle piecemeal, each section snapping into place like pieces of a puzzle, but Chat Noir is nowhere to be found, and something stillbothershim about all of this.





	Cat and Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> wow I sure do love to write the corniest things!

_To my dearest detective,_

_I have my sights set on something most precious._

_On the evening of the Golonzo Isle banquet,_

_I will be waiting in the breeze, under the petals,_

_and behind the ripples of the full moon_

_to claim my treasure right in front of your eyes._

 

* * *

 

“Remind me again why I had to dress up for this, Sarya.”

“Because it’s a _banquet_ , Detective. We have to blend in at least a _little bit_.”

Barawa huffs, pulling at the collar of his suit in irritation. Sarya was insistent that their camouflage be perfect, but his rented suit certainly seems to be a less-than-perfect fit, the buttons constraining against his chest and forcing him to hold his arms tight against his sides. Really, how is he supposed to do his detective work in this? His pocket notebook only _just_ fit, and he can’t imagine it’ll be much use hidden tight against his breast pocket. “It doesn’t matter whether we blend in or not,” he mutters, fiddling with his cufflinks to calm his irritated fingers. “Chat Noir doesn’t care what we’re wearing, he just wants the treasure.”

“And we can’t find out what that treasure _is_ without gathering information,” Sarya counters, pulling out her pocket-sized notebook and a pencil from her bag. Somehow she’s always more prepared than him, and even the outfit she chose for the banquet is fitting for both blending in and detective work, a simple orange cocktail dress that flows off her shoulders and looks much breezier than he feels. “We should keep this as quiet as possible. Let’s not worry people for now.”

“It’d be much faster and less effort if we just asked people if they’ve seen him.”

“If Chat Noir is working with them—” Sarya darts her eyes around, only to see a few onlookers turned in her direction curiously, no doubt alerted by the name of the _famous Phantom Thief_ ; cheeks flushing, she ushers Barawa under a nearby tree in the courtyard with far more strength than Barawa assumed could be possible for an assistant that size—“then they could lie to us. And then we’d be back where we started!”

“I suppose you’re right.” Barawa presses his hands together in some mock contemplation—one of the few actions his clothing will allow. “What do you suggest, Sarya?”

“Let’s get as much info as we can, but make sure you keep the calling card a secret.”

 

* * *

An hour later, they’re not much farther than when they started.

“Detective, I think we’re going about this the wrong way,” says Sarya, touching the tip of her pencil against her lip.

“This is taking too long,” Barawa protests, watching Sarya flip through the pages in her notebook. “We haven’t done anything, and that dastard is still out here somewhere, laughing at us, waiting for us to slip up!”

“Wait,” Sarya mutters, eyes lighting up. “Wait, Detective, that’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“You’ve cracked the first part of the code!”

“I have?”

“Yes!” she exclaims, motioning with her pencil to six very familiar lines she had copied in her notebook earlier in the day with her perfect, precise handwriting. Barawa’s read them over hundreds of times by now, waiting for this night, and now—“How could we miss this? It’s so simple.”

“Yes, of course it is.” Barawa nods, watching her circle the fourth line of the calling card’s riddle. “How foolish of us!”

“You know what I mean, right, Detective?”

Under her curious gaze, Barawa feels himself start to sweat. “Yes, obviously,” he says, reaching for her notebook, looking positively minuscule in his broad hands. Sarya’s neat handwriting is punctuated with notes and arrows pointing this way and that to different tidbits of information, but the circled line sits by itself, a fragment of a puzzle that he’s determined to unravel.

After a few moments of silence, Sarya taps his arm. “Detective, do you understand?”

“Of course.” Barawa hands the notebook back to her with a flourish, his hand twisting in a way that doesn’t seem quite natural to Sarya—were he any less nimble, she’s sure she’d hear a bone cracking, but as it is, it’s the sound of fabric tearing that makes her twitch. But true to his nature, the great detective pays it no mind, and simply says: “His letter said he’ll be waiting in the breeze. Ergo, he’ll be outside. We were checking inside the banquet hall this entire time. No wonder we couldn’t find him.”

“Exactly!” Sarya nods in approval. “Like you said, he’s out _here_ somewhere. So let’s do another sweep!”

“Do you think he’s really out here?”

“His calling cards have never lied before,” she replies, turning around to start searching—and a white spot on Barawa’s shoulder catches her eyes, the seam split clearly and hanging on by the spools of thread between it. “Detective, your jacket,” she starts, tapping him on the arm—

Only for him to turn _far_ too fast at the sound of her voice, and in the next moment, the arm of the jacket has ripped down to the elbow, revealing the thin white dress shirt beneath it.

“Um—”

“No time to bother with the jacket, Sarya, we have a thief to catch!”

 

* * *

Barawa pulls his notebook out and bites his lip. They’ve worked at the rest of the riddle piecemeal, each section snapping into place like pieces of a puzzle, but Chat Noir is still nowhere to be found. He pulls at his hair, the jacket protesting with every move he makes—the waterfall behind him is rusting his thoughts and drowning his irritation, and yet something still _bothers_ him about all of this.

“There must be something we’re missing,” Sarya says, staring intently at her notebook, the calling card’s riddle marked up like notes on a map, circled and scratched and crossed out. “ _Behind the ripples of the full moon_ —he must mean this waterfall, right? But if he’s going to _claim the treasure right in front of your eyes_ , then…”

“I can’t take much more of this!” Barawa exclaims, forcing himself up on unsteady legs; the jacket rips again, and in a fit of anger, he throws the tattered garment off, balls it up, and tosses it at the waterfall. It disappears into the mist. “Chat Noir, get out here and face us one-on-one!”

“Detective, we’re two-on-one,” Sarya corrects.

“I think he might be teasing us,” Barawa mutters, staring at the water—the jacket still hasn’t returned, but sure enough, the full moon shines overhead, slivers of silver cut by droplets like watery mosaics. “If he’s going to call me his greatest rival, he should have the courage to face me!”

Sarya pauses. “Wait, Detective.”

“What, do you see him!?” Barawa whirls around, the chill in the night air all the more obvious without the protection of his jacket.

“No, but I think I know what he’s going to steal.”

“Well, then, out with it! We don’t have time to waste!”

“Mm,” Sarya hums, smile gracing her lips; for the first time that night, the tension in her expression slips into something like amusement. “I think he wants you to figure this one out for yourself.”

“This isn’t funny. Tell me where he is,” Barawa demands, voice rising in pitch.

“I’ll tell you, but you should get your jacket back, first.”

“Sarya, I—”

“I’m serious, Detective, go get your jacket.”

Sighing, Barawa turns to the waterfall, and—well, she has a point, he considers. Where _has_ the jacket gone? The waterfall could have forced it underwater, but for it to not even reach the end of the stream is puzzling; the cloth isn’t heavy, and it was hardly sewn together any longer. He ponders this for a moment, until the realization hits him—

“A cave behind the waterfall,” he concedes. It’s not a stretch: his time in the military taught him to seek shelter wherever possible, and the rock wall behind the water ends juts with a ledge just big enough for him to sneak around without slipping. _Behind the ripples of the full moon_ , indeed. “Sarya, did you—” he calls, but when he turns around, Sarya is gone.

Barawa grits his teeth. Of course. Of course! _The Phantom Thief must have gotten to her!_ Stolen her when he least expected it, after she made him turn his back—an improvised plot, and yet somehow nothing by Chat Noir ever feels improvised, always one damn step ahead of him. If what he wanted was Sarya all along, then…

Then maybe Sarya had been Chat Noir in disguise?

No. Barawa shakes his head and forces that thought out. It couldn’t be: Sarya was acting like she always does, and there was no way Chat Noir could fool Barawa’s eyes by duplicating someone so close to him, master of disguise or not. But her last words nag at him, a thought that refuses to quiet down in his mind:

What did she mean, she knew what he was going to steal? And why the preoccupation with his jacket?

Resigned to his fate, Barawa decides to tackle the problem head-on. He dips into the lake by the waterfall and swims as fast as he can, the strength he honed in the military propelling him forward. He reaches the rock wall in record time, careful to shy to the side of the waterfall to keep from being pushed under.

Finally, he forces himself up against the wall, pushing out of the water with all his might, and catches his breath. His outfit is completely soaked now (so much for getting back the deposit on the rental suit!), but such is a little price to pay if it leads him to the great thief Chat Noir.

And just as he expected, the rock wall opens up behind the waterfall, leading to a cave beside him. His jacket is still nowhere to be found, so he stands up, steadies himself on the narrow path, and presses on. The mouth of the cave opens up to a patch of grass and a rock formation against the far wall, flowers growing in the center from the moonlight shining through a crack in the rock above him, and sitting right on top of the rocks is—

“Good evening, Detective.”

“Chat Noir!”

“I’ve been quite lonely waiting for you.” The thief smiles, pressing a card against his lips; his legs are crossed on the rock and he puffs his chest out in mock irritation, as if to say, _what took you so long?_ “I must admit I was anxious to see how long it would take you to solve the riddle, but you managed to crack the code.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Barawa smirks. “All the clues were there.” Sarya’s help notwithstanding.

“Yes, indeed,” says Chat Noir, laughing, and somehow the laugh pisses Barawa off as much as it does lift his heart. “I should have expected no less from my greatest rival. I knew you would be here. Though, to be honest, I hadn’t guessed that you’d be soaking wet.”

The lilt in his voice makes Barawa irritated. He’s enjoying this, enjoying leading the great detective around in circles. “You didn’t leave me much choice,” he forces out through gritted teeth. “You knew damn well you hid behind a waterfall.” In frustration, Barawa reaches for his notebook in his chest pocket, only to remember that of _course_ it’d be soaked too. The weight of water in his clothes forces him back down, and he surveys his surroundings. There’s nowhere for either of them to hide. In a one-on-one fight, he’d have the advantage in strength—could surely arrest Chat Noir right here if he wanted—but he hasn’t moved yet, and something in the situation makes Barawa nervous.

He hasn’t stolen anything yet. What was it he wanted to steal?

“I wonder. Have you realized it yet, Detective?” comes Chat Noir’s voice, and something in it—there’s something that makes Barawa narrow his eyes, that tone of his voice, low and sweet like honey spilling and spreading in warm tea. “Surely you must realize why I’m here.”

“You’re not after the people at the banquet,” Barawa concludes, flipping through the possibilities in his mind. “Either there’s no jewels there for you to steal, or you have something greater in mind.”

“Correct!” comes the reply, and Barawa steels his ground. Chat Noir smiles, pulling himself up off the rock and spreading his arms as an invitation. Barawa still doesn’t move. “Keep going.”

“You’re after something else.”

“What is it that you think I want?”

“It’s…” Barawa trails off; damn, he hadn’t thought that far yet. And Chat is getting closer and closer and god _dammit_ , he can arrest the guy right here and now, but he hasn’t done anything illegal yet, but who cares about whether he’s done anything illegal this time or not? And yet he needs to know what is it he wants to steal before he can do anything about it—

_— I’ll claim my treasure right in front of your eyes._

—And before he realizes it, Chat Noir has closed the distance between them as if he _teleported_ , and Barawa feels gloves against his hands, something soft against his lips, pressing against him and up, and it takes him a second to regain his footing and realize—

Chat Noir is _kissing_ him. And some part of him—some part of him that surfaced during the beetle incident, a part of him he’d ignored on their future run-ins, on their later chases—likes it.

And then almost as soon as it started, it’s over, and Chat Noir has pulled away, holding Barawa’s soaked hands between his gloves, smiling that irritating smirk.

It takes Barawa too long to recover. “What the hell was _that_!?” he sputters, flailing like a teenager on his first date (oh, god, does this count as a date now?) as his rival—the one who just _kissed him_ —simply smiles, bends on one knee, and plants a gentle kiss on the back of his hand.

“That, Detective, was what I wanted to steal.”

“What the hell?” Barawa repeats, awestruck, and quite unsure of what to do in this situation, but the last thing on his mind is to leave. Because for all of his protests—for all of his moments of irritation in the short time he’s seen his rival tonight—there’s a part of him that wants to stay.

“What I wanted was your surprised face, Detective,” Chat Noir smiles, standing up with a speed that leaves Barawa seeing stars. “And I think you’ll find that my heists are always successful.”

Barawa blinks, takes a moment to recover—and then, “You left a calling card for _this_?”

“Call it a game if you must,” says Chat Noir, twirling a card that he pulled from somewhere—Barawa’s a little too dazed to pick up on the details, detective or not—and presses it against his lips. “But I figured it was the best way to meet you here. And I’d say it was fun for both of us.”

“If you think I’m gonna let you get away with this, you’ve got another thing coming—”

“Oh, is that a challenge?”

“Damn right it is,” Bawara admits, frustrated and finished with Chat Noir’s half-truths. As if he could truly hide it anyway—he’s walking closer anyway, and he’s sure as hell not walking closer to arrest him. But the feeling in his chest is a strange mix of anticipation, surprise, and anger, and he’s not about to be one-upped by his greatest rival. If Chat Noir is going to kiss him, then he’ll have to do him one better and kiss him _harder_ and _win_.

“While I would be happy to oblige you, I’m afraid our time is up. Your assistant will see us if I delay, and it’s not fair to face me two-on-one.” Suddenly, Chat Noir snaps his fingers, and Barawa’s vision is filled with rose petals dancing in the breeze, the splashing of the waterfall echoing in the cave. Chat Noir has disappeared, but his voice is all around him, everywhere and nowhere all at once, resounding in his ears. “Perhaps when we meet again, we can continue our duel.”

“Chat Noir, get back here this instant!”

“Until next time, my dear detective.”

When the flower petals clear, Barawa is alone in the cave. _Figures,_ he thinks, stuffing his hands in his cold, soaked pockets. Alone in a cave, clothes drenched and without the arrest of a Phantom Thief to win against his rival—and with him stealing a _kiss_ of all things—Barawa sighs and balls his fists.

Damn.

In the heat of the moment, Barawa had almost forgotten his true objective; he glances around the cave for his jacket, tattered as it must be, and sees it sitting atop the rock Chat Noir was sitting on. Grateful for at least one piece of good news, he rushes to grab at the jacket, only to find it sewed up perfectly with bright thread, a small caricature of a cat sewed into the front pocket.

So much for the deposit, he figures. He might as well just close his detective agency for the money this is going to cost him.

“Detective!” calls a voice, decidedly higher than the one he’d been hearing a minute ago, and when Barawa turns he finds Sarya rushing to him, hair a little frazzled but otherwise not worse for the wear.

“Sarya,” says Barawa, “Where did you go!?”

“Oh, um,” she says, flustered and looking away, “I figured you had the riddle solved for yourself. And that you should meet the Phantom Thief. You’re his rival, after all, you could find him better than me.”

“Did you know?”

Sarya blinks, and falls silent for a minute. Finally, she smiles and says, “No idea, Detective.”

Barawa hisses, cursing Chat Noir under his breath. “He got away again. But he only stole—I mean, he didn’t steal something physical. Er, that is,” he blusters, face growing redder and redder, “he didn’t steal anything.”

“Mm,” Sarya hums, and Barawa is _certain_ she knows more than she’s telling him, but he’s too cold and exhausted to press the issue. “Excuse me for asking, but how did you get so soaked?”

“I had to swim here to reach this cave. Wait,” he says, something clicking in his mind, “how are your clothes so dry?”

“I walked here,” Sarya says simply. “The rock ledge is a path. You can walk it back to the grass field. Did you really…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Sarya laughs, and Barawa feels his face growing hot. “I think that “act first” personality is why Chat Noir is so drawn to you,” she whispers. After a minute of contemplation, she speaks up again with, “Detective, you smell like his perfume.”

“Wha—”

His reaction makes her giggle—she had a feeling, after all—but nevertheless she reaches up to the pocket of his dress shirt, still soaked and tight against his skin. “He left a calling card here.”

“Oh.” Barawa breathes to calm his furious heartbeat. Of course that’s why the smell of perfume clings to him so tightly. Obviously. “What does it say?”

“Um, let’s see,” Sarya starts, clearing her throat. With her best imitation of Chat Noir’s voice, she reads, “ _‘I’ve stolen your notebook, Detective. If you want it back, meet me again at the waterfalls of Auguste in a week’s time—I do so love to see you swim. We can finish our duel there.’_ ”

Barawa pats his pocket, and as sure as the note says, his notebook is missing. Dammit. He’s played right into the thief’s hands _again_ , and completely lost the upper hand. There’s no way he’s going to let Chat Noir take his notebook and a kiss without giving him one in return.

If it’s a duel he wants, it’s a duel he’s going to get.


End file.
